‘The Other Side of the Wind’ Trailer Reveals Footage From Famously Troubled Orson Welles Movie

The trailer for Orson Welles’ long awaited, never-before-released final film The Other Side of the Wind has arrived.

The film, which is set to premiere at the Venice International Film Festival, was shot from 1970 to 1976 in a famously drawn-out and troubled production. Delayed during the editing process due to legal and financial troubles, it was never finished. Editor Bob Murawski (The Hurt Locker) and producers Frank Marshall (Welles’ production manager on the film) and Filip Jan Rymsza (Dustclouds) were among the team that assembled Welles’ footage and previously edited story into a completed film. Composer Michael LeGrand (Yentl) has provided a new score.

Following J.J. “Jake” Hannaford (played by Chinatown director John Huston) during his comeback attempt in Hollywood following a stint in Europe, The Other Side of the Wind satirizes the so-called “New Hollywood” and the old-fashioned studio system as Hannaford attempts to complete his latest opus and return to form. The Last Picture Show director Peter Bogdanovich, actress Susan Strasberg and Welles’ romantic partner Oja Kodar also star in the Citizen Kane director’s mockumentary-style, self-referential film.

The trailer shows Hannaford, who is called “the Ernest Hemingway of the cinema” by one character and likened to a religious follower by another, as he begins a film also called The Other Side of the Wind. The production process grows increasingly frenzied as collaborators admit they don’t know what the movie is about and argue Hannaford is making it up as he goes along. 

At Venice, the film will screen alongside They’ll Love Me When I’m Dead, Morgan Neville’s (Won’t You Be My Neighbor?) documentary about the making of the troubled film. Netflix will release The Other Side of the Wind on Nov. 2.

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